Because Maxine Revere sees the world through her own glasses, and damn anyone who doesn’t get with the program.
So now David was here, at Corcoran State Prison, to interview a man convicted of murdering his son. It took more than thirty minutes before he was cleared through security and taken to the visiting area—a large room with several guards at the doors and along the perimeter watching the group of prisoners and visitors. Tables were set up on one side, a television area on another; toys and puzzles were in another corner. David watched as a burly, tattooed convict played dinosaurs with his daughter who couldn’t be more than four. A woman, who David presumed to be the child’s mother, sat to the side, tears in her eyes, watching them.
“Wait here,” the guard told David and led him to a table in the far corner.
It took several minutes before another guard brought in Adam Donovan. Donovan sat in the chair across from David and stared without comment.
The man had hardened, lost weight, gained muscle, and his dark hair had turned half gray in the span of five years since his conviction for the murder of his son. He was only thirty-six, but he looked closer to fifty. A long, jagged scar on his neck hadn’t been there in the last photo David had of him on the day he’d been sentenced.
“Mr. Donovan, I’m David Kane. I work for Maxine Revere, an investigative reporter with NET television.”
David had told Max he wouldn’t do well with a man who was convicted of killing his son. All David could think about was his own daughter. If anyone hurt her, he would see red. Anyone who did violence to a child deserved worse than prison.
Yet here David was, facing a convicted killer, because Max insisted.
“You don’t like me, so why are you here?” Adam said.
Perceptive.
“Because my partner is investigating a crime similar to your son’s murder. Dead boy. Only child. One or both parents a lawyer. Kidnapped from his bedroom and found less than two miles from his house.”
Adam didn’t look surprised, just sad.
David continued. “There are enough similarities to your son’s murder that we wanted to talk to you.”
“Well, fuck you. I didn’t kill that kid. I’ve been locked up for five years, three months, and ten days.”
“I wanted to talk about Chris.”
“The only reason I agreed to meet with you is to tell you to go to hell. I do not want my family to go through this shit again. My ex-wife … or my mom.” His voice cracked. “My brother and sister, they don’t deserve to be hounded by the fucking press like they were five years ago. No one does. So just—fuck off. Leave us alone.”
“You pled not guilty.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“You didn’t take the stand. Maxine’s attorney thinks your attorney was an incompetent idiot, but you haven’t filed an appeal. You would probably be granted a new trial for a half-dozen different reasons.”
“You just don’t get it. My son is dead.” Adam glared at him. “Someone took him from his bed, where he should have been safe, suffocated him, and buried him at the park down the street. Why? Hell if I know. Yet, my ex-wife thinks I killed him. She believes it deep down that I am not only capable of killing a child, of killing my own son, but that I actually did it. My life means nothing. I don’t care. Just—go away.”
“I have a daughter. I would be moving heaven and earth to find out who hurt her.”
“How? I have no money—used it all for the trial. I have no family. No one who believes me except my mother, yet she cries every time she visits. I told her to stop coming because it’s going to kill her. And my son is still dead. Finding the killer isn’t going to bring him back.”
“Let me ask these questions my boss prepared and I’ll let you get back to wallowing in self-pity.”
“Charmer, aren’t you.”
David opened his mouth, then closed it when he realized that he had sounded exactly like Max.
“Adam,” David said, putting aside all Max’s questions, “I’m not going to sit here and lie to you—I came in here believing the jury was right, that even though your trial was fucked, you are exactly where you belong. But when Maxine Revere gets an itch, it has to be satisfied, and if I didn’t talk to you in person, she would, and she doesn’t take excuses or bullshit. I personally don’t care. I don’t have a vested interest in this case or any case. I just do my job.”
That had begun to change, because David had begun to care about the work he did with Max, but David didn’t want to think too much about that right now. He’d only noticed that lately, Max had been … different. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but she’d put up this wall between them. Last year he would have been grateful to get the space. Now? Not so much.
“Ask,” Adam said through clenched teeth.
“Your alibi was your mistress. Two of the other victims we’re looking at also had cheating fathers. How long had you been involved with Amy Lovell?”
“Nearly a year.”
“She was discredited on the stand.”
“Fucking prosecutor.”
“You initially lied to police.”
“Because I didn’t know what happened to Chris, I didn’t know he’d been killed … I don’t know what I thought, only I never once thought that he was dead.” He took a deep breath. “I cheated on my wife. I’m not proud of it, but it wasn’t like we had a perfect marriage. We went through a rough patch and Cindy didn’t want a divorce.”
“You did?”
“You read the transcript. Don’t ask stupid questions.”
David bristled. “I’m trying to wrap my head around the fact that if you are innocent, why you’re not exercising your right to appeal.”
“Because my son is still dead! Back then, I was a borderline alcoholic. I’m clean in here. Not much else good about the place, but I’m sober, and I’m doing my time and trying not to think about anything else.”
It was clear that all Adam Donovan thought about was the past.
“Did anyone know about your affair?”
“No.”
“No?”
“Cindy didn’t know, if that’s what you mean.”
“Cheating spouses always think that.”
“If she’d known, she wouldn’t have been so vindictive on the stand. She really believes I killed my son so that I could run off with Amy. Yes, I wanted a divorce because Cindy and I argued every fucking day about every fucking thing. That wasn’t good for Chris. I drank too much because I didn’t know what else to do. Amy was a distraction and she didn’t scream at me. We talked more than we screwed. Cindy wasn’t a bad person, she loved Chris, just like I did. Her parents had divorced when she was twelve and she had it in her head that we had to make it work for Chris. We tried … God, we tried. We even went to marriage counseling. But it had been a mistake from the beginning. We were just too young and stupid to see it.”
“So you and Amy discreetly had an affair for a year.”
“Yes.”
“You worked together.”
“We both worked for the same software company, I was in IT and she was in human resources.”
An idea came to David, but he filed it away to follow up on later.
“It came out in the trial that Chris was drugged prior to being suffocated.”